Exploring costs and consequences of religious expression in family businesses

Abstract

Although there has been increasing attention given to family businesses in the broader management literature, to date there has been little exploration of the role of religious beliefs in family businesses. We studied the role of religion and the costs and consequences of its expression in family businesses by conducting 12 interviews with members of family businesses; 6 themes emerged from our qualitative data. The first three themes describe, in the participant’s own words, the experience of religious expression in family businesses: “it’s just the values”, “it touches everything”, and “we don’t push it on people”. The final three themes describe the positive and negative ramifications of religious expression in family business: “it’s all God’s”, “it’s people, it’s not the bottom line”, and “it’s a clean lifestyle”. Our informants reported that the inclusion of religious principles in the business fundamentally changes the way that they handle a variety of management issues, the way that they define success, and the fulfillment they experience through their business.

Keywords:

• religion
• family business
• qualitative research
• spirituality
• values